Alphabet subsidiary Google on Monday launched a bid to get Europe’s second-highest court to annul a record 4.34-billion euro ($5.1 billion) fine related to its Android operating system and blasted European Union antitrust regulators for “ignoring” Apple.
In July 2018, Google was fined a record $5.1 billion fine by the European Union for abusing its market dominance in mobile phone operating systems. The EU imposed the record penalty after finding that Alphabet required smartphone manufacturers to pre-install Google’s search and browser apps devices using its Android operating system, otherwise they would not be allowed to use its Google Play online store and streaming service.
The European Commission fined Google in 2018, saying that it had used Android since 2011 to thwart rivals and cement its dominance in general internet search.
“The Commission shut its eyes to the real competitive dynamic in this industry, that between Apple and Android,” Google’s lawyer Meredith Pickford told the court.
“By defining markets too narrowly and downplaying the potent constraint imposed by the highly powerful Apple, the Commission has mistakenly found Google to be dominant in mobile operating systems and app stores, when it was in fact a vigorous market disrupter,” he said.
Pickford said Android “is an exceptional success story of the power of competition in action”.
MacDailyNews Take: Mobile Operating System Market Share Worldwide, August 2021:
• Android 72.74%
• iOS 26.42%
You cannot abuse a monopoly when you don’t have a monopoly.
BTW: Google is a thief.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]